The DSP’s inaugural Dissertation Fellow, Kyong Mazzaro, is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Graduate Center in The City University of New York. She uses quantitative and qualitative methods to study violence, electoral politics, and media freedom. 

In her dissertation, Kyong examines the conditions under which political struggles incentivize governments and nonstate actors to restrict media freedom. Using qualitative and quantitative data, including microdata on attacks against journalists, she explains subnational and cross-national patterns of media freedom in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela. As a Dangerous Speech Project Dissertation Fellow, she will study the features of government-sponsored anti-media speech and empirically assess the extent to which dangerous speech poses a threat to the physical integrity of journalists in Venezuela.

Kyong holds a MA in Political Science from Columbia University, a MA in Migration Studies from Sapienza University of Rome, and a BA in International Studies from the Central University of Venezuela. She was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, where she lived until she graduated from college.

Read the article she published based on her research here. 

• Mazzaro, Kyong. (2021). “Anti-Media Discourse and Violence Against Journalists: Evidence From Chávez’s Venezuela.” The International Journal of Press/Politics: 19401612211047198.

 

For more information about the DSP’s Dissertation Fellowship, please email [email protected]